When talking about user experience (UX), many discussions jump right to user interface (UI) design and what software looks like. Or as I’ve heard many times, “making things pretty.” But UX encompasses the entire experience a person has with a product or service. From the interface, its usability and functionality, to how it makes the user feel. “It’s a system, it’s everything,” as Don Norman, former VP of Apple, author and considered the father of UX design, describes it.
It’s also easy to get caught up thinking the only place user experience matters is for customer-facing products. While that is extremely important, the UX of internal tooling or enterprise systems is in many ways just as critical to the health of a business – and retaining top talent. A poor user experience can result in inefficiency, frustration, and disengagement.
One area where enterprise software has made headway in UX is the convergence of geospatial analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). By thoughtfully leveraging geospatial data alongside AI, insurers are streamlining the way they assess risks, process claims, and interact with policyholders, allowing their teams to shed tedious activities and crack the door open for more strategic thinking and activities that require their knowledge and expertise.
Mapping the Way Forward
Geographic information systems (GIS), which include information about the characteristics and physical location of places, have become a cornerstone of the insurance industry.
By integrating geospatial data into their systems and workflows, insurers gain a deeper understanding of the geographic and meteorological factors that influence risk assessment, claims exposure, and portfolio composition. From assessing property risks based on flood or wildfire scores to getting automated alerts predicting exposure of a catastrophic weather event, the applications of geospatial data in insurance are wide ranging.
In the past, many systems required GIS expertise to operate – adding a costly hand-off to another person in an already time-crunched workflow. However, with innovation in technology and improvements in user interface design, today nearly anyone can quickly make data-driven decisions using geospatial analytics.
Unlocking the Potential of Intelligent Augmentation
AI is also making an impact in the geospatial space, in areas like risk assessment, image recognition and classification, change detection and predictive claims, both augmenting and simplifying the insurer’s workflow.
AI-powered image recognition and classification streamlines insurance processes by automating the analysis of satellite or aerial imagery, swiftly identifying and classifying property characteristics like number of buildings, square feet, roof material, roof condition, vegetation, and other essential attributes for underwriting and claims assessment.
Similarly, by harnessing AI-driven change detection and monitoring capabilities, insurers can detect changes in property conditions or environmental factors over time, aiding in risk mitigation strategies, claims processing, and fraud detection.
Another example where AI can augment an insurer’s workflow is during and after major weather events. Scientists use AI to fuse diverse data sources such as from drone networks, satellite imagery, and event footprints to construct models for storm damage probability. These models can be used as a first notification of loss (FNOL), assisting insurers in planning reserves, contacting accounts and facilitating rapid responses to significant weather events. This simplifies the claims manager’s workflow and improves customer satisfaction, a win-win.
Are Your Ready to Create Enhanced User Experiences?
By integrating these technologies into their workflows, insurers can make better informed decisions and deliver more personalized services. They can also speed up processes that were once painstaking or required specialized expertise, freeing them to concentrate on higher-level tasks such as decision-making, innovation and strategy.
Ultimately, insurers can create a more efficient, seamless, and satisfying experience for themselves and their customers by thoughtfully leveraging geospatial data and AI.